ontological

fugue

craven

prattle

poplars,

acts of savagery originate with authority, he wrote. The work to be done, he told them, is a refusal of savagery.

What is it people encounter in their stark and solitary four a.m. self? What is inside them? Not politics. There are no politics inside of people.

People tell themselves, strenuously, that they believe in this or that political position, whether it is to do with wealth distribution or climate policy or the rights of animals. They commit to some plan, whether it is to stop old-growth logging, or protest nuclear power, or block a shipping port in order to bring capitalism, or at least

In reality, problems leave when they are ready to go, when they have exhausted their stay, just as these lice did.